“Mommy, there’s someone at the door!” Toby yelled.
Meg put her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes at the boy, who was pressing buttons on the universal remote control, but not the right one to turn on the television. “What if I was pretending not to be home?”
His finger paused over the device and he furrowed his brow. “Then they would know you’re home now.”
“Exactly.”
“Why would you pretend not to be home? That’s lying, Mommy.”
“No.” She strode toward the door, wagging a finger at him. “That’s called time management and crisis avoidance. You’ll learn it when you’re a bigger dude.”
“Okay.” Finally, he found the correct button and let out a little “Whoop,” only to immediately deflate when he realized the station was set to CNN. Back to work he went.
Standing on tiptoes, Meg put an eye to the peephole. “Is that…”
Even standing a couple of feet back from the door, he filled the panoramic view the fish-eye lens afforded, and his coppery hair shone in the hallway’s soft lights.
“How’d he get in?” she mused.
Didn’t matter. With some squinting, she realized Rosamund had poked her head out again, and Seth was turned to her, talking.
Hell no.
Meg snatched the door open and said in the sweetest voice she could manage, “Did you lose your key already?”
He turned, eyebrows raised, lips slightly parted, but quickly adapted to the situation at hand. He nodded and shifted the black backpack strap on his shoulder to his hand. “Yes, I…I tried calling your phone, but it kept going to voice mail.”
Shit.
She’d turned the thing off after clearing her voice mail and hadn’t bothered to turn it back on.
“I accidentally dropped my phone in the sink. It’s drying out in some rice,” she lied, moving out of the way of the door for him to enter.
“I’ll talk to you later, Seth,” Rosamund said. The ballsy bitch actually stepped across the hall and followed Seth as far as the doormat. “I teach some classes at Gerrity’s Gym, so if you’re looking for a—”
Meg pushed the door closed.
“I take it you don’t like her?” Seth set his backpack and briefcase by the table where Meg usually tossed her keys and spare change.
His movement drew her attention to the wad of gauze and the medical tape affixed on the inside of his elbow.
Toby must have noticed it, too. “What’d you do to your arm, Seth?”
“Oh.” Seth flexed the arm, working his elbow, as if he’d forgotten the bandage were there. “Nothing’s wrong. I went to my doctor earlier. He drew some blood.”
“Ew. Can you change the channel? I don’t want to watch this. This is boring. Are you sleeping in my room? I’ve got bunk beds.”
Suddenly, that Dr Pepper she’d sipped while flitting around the grocery store wasn’t sitting right in her belly. Toby didn’t seem to have a good understanding of what Seth’s role was in this mess, which made good sense because Meg hadn’t been all that good at explaining it. She hadn’t even told him what they were doing in Bermuda, hoping that when the charade all fell apart, his only takeaway would be the memory of a nice vacation and not much else.
But now… He seemed to know that in some way he was connected to Seth, and that Seth belonged in the household. However, he couldn’t have known why and Meg didn’t know what lies to tell him.
Seth sat on the sofa next to Toby and took the remote. He quickly brought up the channel guide and scrolled through the offerings.
“Read them. I can’t read,” Toby demanded.
“Saying please would go a long way,” Meg said.
Seth just grinned and kept scrolling.
“Please read them!” Toby said.
And so Seth did.
Once Toby was settled in front of a cartoon movie he’d already seen at least five times by Meg’s count, Seth joined her in the kitchen, looking somewhat bashful and out of place given the way he shifted his weight. “I…have a meeting in Research Triangle Park in the morning and I thought—”
“It’s fine.” She hoped to placate him with her soft tone. Soft was hard for her, but how dare she be crusty when he was so kind to Toby? So patient? She pulled the freezer door open and rearranged the meat to find the beef round she’d just bought.
Maybe stroganoff…passive cooking.
If dinner were going to be only for her and Toby, she probably would have made them soup and sandwiches, and they’d hang out in front of the television, recovering from their travels. But maybe they’d had enough soup-and-sandwich nights in recent history. She hadn’t had the mojo to cook for just the two of them. It wasn’t that Toby wasn’t entitled to a substantial hot meal, but seeing all those leftovers that would get stored for three days and then scraped into the trash was depressing.